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Toshitada’s sword clashes against Father’s, and she grins victoriously when he grunts and has to take a step back.
Not for the first time, she has him on the defensive, and the feeling is intoxicating.
Of course, Father isn’t going to let her win; he’s still much stronger and skilled than she is actually, but Toshitada knows she will catch up eventually. She trains hard for that, with the blade and with the kusarigama, for which she has developed a fondness, and with the bow and the spear.
She’s getting a well-rounded education in weaponry use, as is proper for a fief’s male Heir.
Even if no one is to know she’s not really male…
Father strikes back and now it’s Toshitada who is on the defensive, barely raising her arm in time to block the sword. They’re using training blades, but even a dull blade can cut and cause damage if one is not careful, and Toshitada do not fancy visiting the healer today, or any time soon.
The last time had been humiliating enough.
Toshitada, wherever she likes to admit it or not, is growing up, and things are changing in her body every passing day. She just has had to learn how to properly wrap her chest to flatten the barely-there but still distinctive mounts on her chest and soon enough, she’ll have to learn how to deal with the monthly flow of blood that all women must endure in their fertile years.
The thought alone disgusts her, and it makes her slip.
Father’s sword is suddenly there, coming past her defense, and she can only curse aloud as it comes to rest just above her heart. If Father wanted it so, he could stab her and ends her.
He has won, as always, but Toshitada has given him a good run, and he seems faintly pleased.
“You’re progressing, child,” he says simply as he removes the blade and Toshitada can only bow to him in acknowledgement and respect, her long red hairs falling around her face as she does.
“Thank you, Father,” she replies evenly as she allows a servant to hand her a linen to wipe her forehead before the woman disappear quietly and quickly, like all good retainers ought to when they’re not needed.
It is a hot summer day, and the air is stifling.
On the engawa, the women who have assisted to the training session are clapping politely. Toshitada gives them a smile, particularly at excitable Chizuru, who looks like she wants to launch herself at her to hug her.
“But,” Father is speaking again, and Toshitada’s attention snaps back to him quickly, hoping he will not find her disrespectful for getting distracted by the onlookers, “you must continue training hard, and not just with your weapons. Your tutors have been singing your praises in calligraphy and poetry and the studies of ancient history,” he continues, and Toshitada tries not to fidget, “but they are less kind about your progresses in the Chinese and Korean language.” He’s looking mildly displeased at it, but not furious, so it could be worse.
“I’ll try to intensify my efforts, Father,” Toshitada promises with a lower bow, though inwardly, she’s grimacing. She doesn’t see how to learn to speak barbarian languages will help her become a good Head of the House when Father passes away, or a better warrior to defend their Clan’s interests. Learning numbers and budgeting is fine, and poetry is agreeable to the ear, and writing is an essential skill, but bloody languages…
“See that you do,” Father says as he puts the swords away on a rack.
Slowly, he turns to look at Toshitada, who can’t help but stand straighter.
She wonders, not for the first time, what he sees when he looks at her.
Toshitada doesn’t look like a girl, for all she has the body of one. She keeps her hair long, but plenty of men do as well, so it’s not as if it could be used against her. Her hair, oddly enough, have the color of blood, a deep red that makes people stare. She’s tall, taller than all girls and most boys her age, with strong, well-defined muscles she has gained from training day after day to master all weapons she can and from riding her horse. And she’s so strong, too! She can beat any boy in a fist fight!
Toshitada has none of the grace of her sisters. Her every gestures are aggressive and brisk and if she can move at sedater paces, then she doesn’t have the grace of a well-bred lady but that of a predator on the prowl, or so her teachers have murmured more than once.
No-one who isn’t in the known about her true sex already could guess what she is, Toshitada is sure.
And still, Father always looks at her as if he expects to find a flaw.
It’s unnerving, but… Toshitada has learned to live with it. It’s alright. It’s normal, she thinks to herself. Father has taken a risky gambit, announcing he had a son when Toshitada was born, but it had been a needed one. A son was a guarantee for stability, especially when your territory was so easily coveted. Daughters were fine for alliances or to form a last line of defense, but a son… A son was to succeed you, and keep the ie intact.
Only, for all Father and Mother have tried, they had only sired daughter after daughter, all while Father’s male relatives, his brothers and uncles and cousins, kept dying in battle or were felled by assassination or sickness.
Father could have adopted a boy into the Clan, but… He hadn’t.
Instead, the day Toshitada had been born and placed in his arms, his sixth-born child, he had looked at the babe crowned with wet, red hair as dark as blood and had announced the Kami had given him a son at long last.
Toshitada has been raised as a boy on his order, and she doesn’t mind the slightest, because it allows her so much more opportunities than her sisters have! Oh, her sisters know how to fight, too, but mostly with the naginata or the bow, and they’re learning music and womanly arts that Toshitada has no care or need for. She has no use for make-up, and if she can grudgingly admit sewing isn’t a bad skill to know the basics off, she cannot picture herself weaving and sewing clothes for her kin or doing the laundry with the servants.
No, she’s perfectly happy to be Father’s designated Heir.
But for all it was his decision, Father never seems to be fully satisfied of what Toshitada can do. Probably always comparing her to what a true boy could do in her stead, she thinks with sudden anger.
Well, she’s worth more than any boy, ever!
Not that she’ll ever tell Father that.
Toshitada is a good, obedient child, and loyal to her parents. She’s not going to question them, especially not in public.
If Father doesn’t trust her to keep the secret hidden, if he thinks she’s not yet masculine and strong enough, then Toshitada just has to work harder and harder still to prove him she’s deserving, that he hasn’t made a mistake, raising her as the son he has always wanted.
Father’s eyes have a weight to them, and Toshitada tries to stay still and dignified under his scrutiny.
And then finally, he speaks.
“The Kami were kinder with me than I expected, when they granted you as my son,” the man says gruffly with a nod to Toshitada before taking his leave.
Her chest puffs with pride at the compliment, even if she knows that if he had the choice, she wouldn’t be his Heir. But as it is…
“The Kami would have been kinder granting him a son who has a cock,” one of Toshitada’s older sisters mutters a little too loudly, only to be shushed by the others.
The redhead’s face twitches, and she turns to glare at them. She and her sisters have a… complicated relationship, to say the least. Some do not care for their ‘brother’s’ true sex, others are savvy enough to understand the need for secrecy, and others still hate the fact Toshitada is a ‘boy’, and as such, exempted from ‘feminine hardships’.
Miyako especially, who is always frowning and glaring at Toshitada as if her very existence offends her. Even now, he can see the distaste in her eyes. She’s not very good at hiding her feelings or keeping her tongue to herself, and it displeases Father immensely. Miyako should be the next one to get married, for she has reached the right age for several years now, but Father is in no hurry to see her off or give her a husband who’d take the Koma name.
There are whispers he’s thinking of making a nun out of her, which seems to upset her most than all.
Bitch, Toshitada thinks.
She doesn’t know if Miyako is ever going to get married, because it’s for Father to decide, but Toshitada thinks that if she does, then she’s never going to pick any of Miyako’s children as her own Heirs.
Toshitada knows that her true sex is going to be a problem on that front, and that she’ll have to do what Father didn’t and adopt a son when the time comes. Most likely, she’ll have to pick among her sisters’ sons, because one of them at least is bound to have one – the Kami wouldn’t be so cruel as to only grant the Koma clan several generations of women in a row.
She wonders if Father has thought about it already, and have thought about Toshitada’s own wedding when his ‘son’ reach adulthood.
(She cannot marry a man without outing herself, but Toshitada does wonder, briefly, what it would be like, kissing another girl, and exploring her body like a married couple…)
“Those were unkind words,” demure, clever Masako declares, hands neatly folded in her lap as she bows to Toshitada. “Please, forgive them, brother.”
“I am above such petty things,” Toshitada declares with a huff, though he gives Masako a small, terse nod. “I am Father’s son, regardless of what all of you may think or like, and it will stay so.”
Especially since Mother is past bearing age and Father’s pride or whatever mysterious way his mind works won’t let him either take a concubine in the hope of having a male descendance or adopt a son from a remote branch of the family. The best he’s likely to do is to have a man or two marry IN the family and take the Koma name, and Toshitada wonders if it’s going to be a problem too, in a few years.
If she’ll ever have to defend her position against ambitious brothers-in-law deciding THEY’d make a better job at leading the Clan than a woman masquerading as a man.
“Of course, brother,” Masako nods. “None of us said otherwise.” Her quiet gaze, the same color as Toshitada’s own eyes, sweeps over the other girls warningly, and they all bow or look away, even Miyako.
“I don’t even see what’s the problem. Big brother is perfect as he is,” Chizuru, Toshitada’s only younger sister (her parents very last desperate attempt at a male child, thwarted yet again) declares boldly, and Toshitada cannot help but smile at her.
There is reason Chizuru has always been her favorite sibling and will likely always stay so, and it’s her eagerness and trust toward her brother-figure. She doesn’t care about Toshitada’s sex, not like all their older sisters do. She just accepts it in a way no-one else do, and it’s… it makes something deep inside Toshitada’s chest ease.
Chizuru is a treasure, and Toshitada will make sure she’s always protected.
Always.